A Father's Gift

Dick Schaap , who wrote nearly 30 sports books and was the avuncular host of ESPN 's The Sports Reporters, died on Dec. 21, at age 67. His son Jeremy, 32, a reporter for ESPN since 1996, shares this remembrance of his dad.

My father saw Bill Mazeroski end the 1960 World Series with a home run, he saw Jerry Kramer throw the block that won the Ice Bowl, he saw Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier pummel each other in Manila , and he saw Reggie Jackson hit one home run in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series. Jackson , of course, hit three home runs to help the Yankees beat the Dodgers in that game. My father saw him hit the first, off Burt Hooton . When Jackson hit his second, my father was at a concession stand buying me popcorn. When Jackson hit his third, my father was buying me a soda.

Eventually, he forgave me. I think.

A year after Jackson 's big night, my father took me to Fenway Park for a one-game playoff between the Red Sox and the Yankees. I was too young to sit in the press box, so he asked some players if anyone had spare tickets. "Sure," said Yankees shortstop Bucky Dent . "You can have mine." That's how we came to be sitting in Bucky Dent 's seats when he hit the game-winning three-run home run that Boston fans still cry over.

I was privileged to spend those moments with my father, to tag along at Super Bowls, Olympics and World Series. But the moments I remember best were the quieter ones watching him at work. For me, my father is a sound: the steady click of his fingers on the keyboard, a cadence I remember awakening to from earliest childhood.

There was always something that had to be written, usually at six in the morning. A book, a television script, a magazine article, a theater review, a radio or TV commentary. He loved writing. My father often said that when you love your job as much as he did, it wasn't work. That's why I wanted to be a sports reporter—I wanted to have as much fun as he had.

I would love to go with him to one more game at Lambeau Field or Madison Square Garden . But what I'd really like is to wake up once more to that sound, the clack-clack of the keyboard—the soundtrack of his life.